Original Guns N’ Roses Member Reveals Why He Wants To ‘Hug’ Ex-Bandmates

Steven Adler says that he “would love to” perform with Guns N’ Roses again in a new Talk Toomey podcast interview.

“I would love to. I love those guys and it was great [playing with them last year]. And if they ever let me do it again, I would definitely jump at it. I would do it just to get a hug from them. I’m so proud of being a part of that. And I might not be with them right now, but I’m just so proud that I was a part of the Guns N’ Roses [fold].”

Adler performed two songs with Guns N’ Roses on the U.S. leg of the Not In This Lifetime tour: “Out Ta Get Me” and “My Michelle”.

In February, Adler revealed that he was originally supposed to appear at more than just a handful of shows on the Guns N’ Roses reunion trek. He told the One on One with Mitch Lafon that he expected to sit behind the drum kit for all the Appetite For Destruction material during the entire tour, only to be told he was out after he hurt his back during rehearsals. “[Bassist] Duff [McKagan] called me and said, ‘Dude, you’re not gonna play with us anymore,'” Adler said. “‘You’re not gonna do these shows.’ And I was, like, ‘You’re the worst fucking person in the world.'”

Former Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven discussed his creative contributions to the band in a new interview, telling Mitch Lafon (transcribed by Ultimate-Guitar):

“They wrote really, really good material. That said, I obviously paid attention to songs, and in my own mind checked more often.

“There was one song that I was a little concerned about, and I felt that it was going to be an important song, and I felt there needed to be something said about it.

“That was actually ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’

“Originally, it was verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus, and I felt uncomfortable about that arrangement.

“So in a pre production rehearsal, I asked Slash and Axl to look at that, and they came up with a really tasty little guitar bridge to break out of that.

“That was the only time I ever had a comment.”

He later discussed touring.

“In a number of respects, there was an aspect of making a break to it. We had a couple of misadventures.

“There was an AC/DC tour that I personally secured for them. It seemed to elude the agent we had at the time, who I think was playing politics, but we got an opening on an AC/DC tour.

“And then we had the incident in Phoenix, and AC/DC went, ‘We don’t want any part of this band.’

“We were out with Iron Maiden, which wasn’t necessarily the most sympathetic of combinations. But at least that I could keep all my smackheads on a bus, and keep an eye on them, and keep them live and keep them mobile and away from their dealers.

“And that had gone down the tubes. From my perspective, we had to go out on at least one more tour to see where the road was going.

“And the only one available was Aerosmith. Of course, Aerosmith at that time were all rehab fellows. So in an ordinary circumstances, the likelihood of Tim Collins [Aerosmith manager] taking on GNR to open for guys that he had rigid control over to keep them from their habits was very slight.

“But we were labelmates, and I went to Eddie Rosenblatt [from Geffen Records] and said, ‘We need the Aerosmith tour, and you’ve got to deliver it for us.’ And David Geffen and Eddie Rosenblatt basically beat Tim Collins up and insisted that he take out GN’R. So, thank you David and Eddie.

“And off we went on the Aerosmith tour, which Axl did not want to do at the time.

“However, from my perspective of my involvement with the band, that tour is the highlight of my experience with the band. That was the highest moment, the magic of an incredible response being manifest by the audience.

“I used to feel bad for Aerosmith having to follow GN’R on stage. Because GN’R would suck all the energy out of huge audiences before [Aerosmith] hit the stage.

“An incredible tour. It remains in my memory as the highlight of my experience with the band.”